★ Eat Chongyang cake

Eat flower cakes. Respect the elderly on the Double Ninth Festival and climb high to avoid disasters. "Cake" is homophonic with "Gao" and has the meaning of "rising step by step", which is more auspicious.

Two days before the Double Ninth Festival, people steamed cakes with flour, and colored flags were inserted on the cakes, dotted with fruits such as pomegranate seeds, chestnut yellow, ginkgo and pine nuts. Or make it look like a lion and put it on a cake, which is called "lion and chestnut cake". This is the custom of Lin 'an (now Hangzhou) in the Southern Song Dynasty. These chestnut cakes are just "good points to carry when we climb mountains together."

The Chongyang cake in the north is the most famous steamed cake with flour, flowers and fruits (also known as hair cake). Steamed cake with steamed dough is made by fermenting flour and putting it into small bowls, putting various flowers and fruits on the bottom of each bowl, such as red dates, nuts, candied fruit, red silk and green silk, etc. After steaming in a cage, the flour cake is poured out, just as all kinds of flowers and fruits are on the flour cake, and it looks like steamed bread. The Chongyang cake on the dough is sweet and soft, and it is very delicious.

In some parts of our country, there is still a custom: in the Double Ninth Festival, married daughters will go back to their parents' homes to send double ninth cakes, usually two big ones and nine small ones, which means to meet on February 9th. The folk song "Just after the Mid-Autumn Festival, I'm busy for the Double Ninth Festival, and I'm just thinking of my mother for the sake of women" circulating in the rural areas in the north reflects this custom and people's feelings.

★ Crab eater

The Double Ninth Festival is in September. Autumn chrysanthemums are fragrant, the crab paste is yellow and delicious, and the meat is tender. It is a good season to eat crabs. The ancients had a poem: "If you don't live up to your eyes, you won't live up to your stomach if you don't eat crabs." Mei Yaochen, a poet in the Song Dynasty, praised the crab in a poem: "The taste of crab was taken away before the bottle, and the soup was wasted on people that day." So today, the steamed hairy crabs in Yangcheng Lake are well-known at home and abroad, and they are all listed as seasonal delicacies in September in major restaurants in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, enjoying a high reputation. No wonder Zhang Taiyan, a famous scholar, and his wife Zeng Buju lived in Wuzhong. After spitting crabs, Mrs. Tang Guoli once recited poems: "If Yangcheng Lake crabs are not good, why should we live in Suzhou?". Throughout the ages, many literati spit crabs, tasted crabs and painted crabs, leaving many anecdotes and anecdotes for future generations, adding a bit of charm to people's spitting crabs.

Today's Double Ninth Festival has a new meaning. 1989, China designated the Double Ninth Festival as the festival for the elderly, and nine is a large number, which means health and longevity. It combines tradition with modernity and gives the Double Ninth Festival a new content of respecting and loving the elderly. As a traditional festival, throughout the ages, people have also carried out activities to respect the elderly and celebrate their birthdays and climb to the top.

★ Drink chrysanthemum wine

Chongyang wants to drink "chrysanthemum wine" Jiujiu is homophonic with Jiujiu, and it is also homophonic with Jiujiu, so it is derived that Jiujiu should drink chrysanthemum wine. The historical meaning is: it is considered as a good name for prolonging life and not getting old. ? People also call September "Chrysanthemum Moon" or "Chrysanthemum Festival". Therefore, chrysanthemum appreciation is an indispensable activity in Chongyang.

Chrysanthemum wine, in ancient times, was regarded as a "auspicious wine" that Chongyang must drink to dispel disasters and pray for blessings. Chrysanthemum wine brewing in China was popular as early as the Han and Wei Dynasties. According to "Miscellanies of Xijing", "Chrysanthemums are comfortable, and stems and leaves are picked, mixed with millet. When it is cooked on September 9 next year, it is drunk, so it is called chrysanthemum wine. " Poets have a special liking for chrysanthemum wine, which is quite praised. Tao Yuanming in the Jin Dynasty said in a poem, "There is no shadow at Yan, but there is a sound when the geese come. Wine can cure all diseases, and chrysanthemum can cure aging. " "The Chronicle of Jingchu's Age" also states: "On September 9th, Pei cornus, eating lotus floss and drinking chrysanthemum wine can make people live longer."

After enjoying chrysanthemums, drinking chrysanthemum wine is naturally the first choice.

★ Eat a rake

Eating harrows is another food custom of the Double Ninth Festival in southwest China. Harrows are divided into soft and sweet, hard and salty. Its practice is to put the washed glutinous rice into a boiling pot, bring it to a boil, steam it in a cage, mash it in a mortar and knead it into a ball. When eating, stir-fry sesame seeds, mash them into fine powder, rub the harrow into strips, pull them into small pieces, and mix them with sesame seeds and sugar. Its taste is sweet and palatable, and it is called "soft rake" (warm food is the best). Hard harrow, also known as "oil harrow", is made by steaming glutinous rice, not mashing it, rubbing it into a ball on a table, rolling it, putting some salt and pepper powder to make a "stuffing core", rolling it into strips and slicing it, and frying it in an oil pan. It is golden and beautiful in color, salty, crispy and memorable.

★ Eat persimmons

Eating persimmons is a custom, and there is a legend among the people in our country. According to the introduction in Wonderland, one year, Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming emperor, went out of the city for a private visit incognito, which coincided with the Double Ninth Festival. He had not eaten for a day, and he felt hungry and thirsty. When he went to Zuochai Village, he saw that every wall fell and trees withered, all of which were burned by soldiers and fires. Zhu Yuanzhang inwardly lamented and looked around. Only a persimmon tree in the northeast corner was ripe, so he picked it and ate about 10, so he was full and disappointed. Before the summer of B, Taizu attacked quarrying (now Caishiji, Maanshan City, Anhui Province) and took Taiping (now Taiping County, Anhui Province). The Taoist scriptures were here, and the persimmon trees still existed. He told the courtiers about his previous private visit to eat persimmons here, and issued a decree: "The persimmon was named Ling Shuang Hou, so that everyone in the world could eat persimmons on the Double Ninth Festival as a souvenir.

★ Eat beef

There is also the custom of eating beef on the Double Ninth Festival all over the country. As a warm food, it is just the right time for the elderly to eat in autumn. Nutritionists tell you that fresh beef and mutton is a warm food, which is easily absorbed by the human body when eaten in autumn, satisfying people's desire to spend the winter.

★ Drink scented tea

Green tea. There are too many things to eat, and a series of digestion and filtration must be carried out, only tea, healthy and green drinks are available.